


(sitting on the) edge of innocence

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen, brief cameos from olaf and dewey, pre-opera night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 14:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17809424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: Kit, Bertrand, and a talk in the Hinterlands about the upcoming opera night mission.





	(sitting on the) edge of innocence

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't own ASOUE
> 
> please don't copy this story to another site

“Hey,” Olaf said as he walked into the kitchen, “you seen Kit?”

Bertrand felt himself tense slightly at the sight of O, but didn’t show it.  He continued pouring the boiled water from the pot into his cup carefully, his grip tightening around the handle.  The water in the cup eventually rose to the stage where he couldn’t add anymore without spilling it over when he walked, and he reluctantly put it down.  He knew Kit was out for a drive, but he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to tell Olaf that.

On the other hand, it wasn’t like the answer would get Olaf anywhere closer to finding Kit, with vagueness of “out for a drive” and Kit’s driving abilities and how she had no qualms of going on a road she’d never travelled before, literally not figuratively anyway. It wasn’t like Bertrand had never lied to Olaf before, and he’d no problem doing it again if he needed, but he did try to avoid doing so when he could. As if he had some pre-allocated quota of lies he was allowed to tell him or something.  There wasn’t, of course, but he tried to stick to this principle if possible.

He was also currently keeping something else, something very important from O too, but he wouldn’t count that as lying. Those were two different things.  Besides, they were never that close anyway, it wasn’t as if he normally told Olaf stuff. If anyone’s Olaf’s friend that would be -- he stopped his train of thoughts and focused on the current situation. “She went out on a drive.” He said.

“Again?” Olaf rolled his eyes, huffing as he ruffled through the fridge, then found a sandwich. He began eating it as he walked out, “I’m starting to think she’s avoiding me.”

Bertrand was glad Olaf’s already one foot out of the kitchen and not looking back, because this meant he didn’t have to think of a reply to this.

He sighed, then took a sip of the tea.

Kit had good reason to avoid Olaf, of course.  Getting an assignment from your organization to be part of the mission to murder your boyfriend’s parents wasn’t something that happened everyday.  But if Olaf was suspicious of something going on …

He needed to talk to Kit, even though this wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to at all.  

 

* * *

 

Bertrand decided that since he wouldn’t be able to find Kit immediately now anyway, he might as well do something else for now.  He slipped into a tunnel from down under the city headquarters, and headed for Hotel Denouement. Or, more precisely, the hidden underwater library.

Dewey lit up when he saw Bertrand, grinning. “Hey,” he waved enthusiastically, “I want to show you this poem I found.”

Bertrand found himself relax, the thoughts about the mission and the impending talk with Kit going away.  Not entirely, as they were still on the back of his mind somewhere. But it was easier to ignore them here, surrounded by books that formed some kind of fortress against realities.  In here, there were just piles and piles of books, poetry, and Dewey.  No opera house maps with escape routes drawn, no trying to get poison darts supplies without arousing suspicions.

Unfortunately, these brief moments of peace always came to an end too soon.  Dewey looked at him hopefully when he said “visit again soon”, and Bertrand meant it when he said he would try, but somehow he still felt suddenly guilty for some reason.

 

* * *

 

Kit stepped on the brakes with possibly much more force than necessary and the taxi came to a sudden stop. For a moment, it looked like she was going to hit her head.  It didn’t happen, though it was very close. She drew a deep breath, and slowly loosened her tightened hold on the wheel.  She tried to smile a little, or perhaps a flippant grin or something, so when Bertrand step into the taxi, she could make it seem like she was just braking like this for fun, like she usually did, instead of because of anger and frustration.  It was hard trying remembering how to smile though. She managed to pulled the edge of her lips up slightly, but it felt more menacing than fun. 

On second thought, whatever, it was Bertrand. She didn’t necessarily have to pretend in front of him, perhaps. Not like she had to with either --

The door opened, and Bertrand stepped in.  However menacing or odd her unnatural grin might be, apparently he didn’t have much reaction to it. “Kit, we need to talk,” he said, straight to the point.

“I gathered,” she said coolly, finally figure out a way to smoothly ease out that weird grin.  “Want to go anywhere specific?”

A part of her wished he would yes, then she could tell him “well, if you’re lucky, it might be the same as the place I had in mind” and then drove to the Hinterlands so she wouldn’t have to see Olaf for a while.

“There is a specific place I wish I’m at, but that’s not where I think this conversation could be held, so … your choice.”

She narrowed her eyes briefly at the statement, momentarily forgetting her own personal troubles and anger. “Is it an underwater library you have in mind?”

He looked slightly taken aback. “How did you -- ”

“Dewey isn’t just your friend,” she rolled her eyes. “He mentioned you two have been reading poetry together a lot lately.”

“Yeah, guess we are,” he shrugged, a little uncomfortably.  She had the urge to ask if he ever thought he was using Dewey and his library as some kind of safe escape from the real life burdens, or ask him if he could see Dewey’s feelings for him that were just so … _there_.  She ultimately didn’t, because just a look at him made her sure that the first answer definitely was a yes, and the second a no.

“Well,” she changed the subject abruptly, stepping the accelerator hard, “we’re going to the Hinterlands.”

She heard a soft sigh from him, which oddly made her slightly satisfied.  The car sped up in an extreme short span of time, and she gripped the wheel tight, her fingers clenching around it as if clenching to the last thing still within her control as everything else spiraled out of order.  Fuck Bertrand for having this perfectly organized, neatly ordered library to escape to whenever he wanted without even realizing Dewey’s feelings.  Fuck herself for being jealous but refused to escape the same way, because she wanted to prove that she didn’t need the perfectly calm, isolated, and organized comfort zones right there in The City like he did.

If she was going to escape to somewhere, let it be a bleak, cold, snowy place up in the mountains.

She glanced at the intersection briefly, then ran a red light as they left the city behind.

 

* * *

 

They sat by a cliff, gazing at the snow mountains.  She pulled a pencil out of her hair and stuck it into the snow, for no particular reason.

“You’ve been avoiding Olaf,” Bertrand said finally, “he’s probably getting suspicious of something going on.”

“What, you two talk?” she scoffed. Staring at the pencil in the snow instead of looking up at him.

“He talks and I keep an ear open for anything that might threaten the mission,” Bertrand corrected her.

She used one hand to hold the part of pencil that was just above the snow, and the other to bend the upper parts of the pencil forward.  The pencil broke, leaving just the bottom half stuck in the snow.  She looked up at him, eerily calm as their eyes met. “He might be suspicious in general, but he had no idea of what’s specifically going on.”

“Not _yet_.”

She laughed sharply, “And it won’t matter anymore at that point, will it?  It’s not like he’s not going to find out who’s in on the mission eventually. It’s not like we’re all going to go back to our normal lives pretending nothing happened. It’s not like he and I are still going to be _together_ after this.”

“Fine,” he bit out, looking a little angry.  Her lips twisted humorlessly, thinking to herself that she bet Beatrice never saw this side of him.  Neither did Dewey, probably. Or Jacques or Lemony. “But it’s still best to make sure he doesn’t think anything’s out of order, or he might start digging around, and if he got some help from others it might interfere with this.”

He sounded like he had a point, but Kit really doubted Olaf would directly jump to these kind of suspicions just by her avoiding him.  He might think she was seeing someone else, possibly, but definitely not plotting a murder where his parents were targets.

“Beatrice and him are still hanging out like normal as if nothing’s happening,” he added, and Kit suddenly wanted to break something more substantial than a pencil stuck in snow. _God, so this is about Beatrice now, is it? You think you understand her?_

 _You don’t understand her like I do and you never will,_ she wanted scream.

“You think she’s perfect,” she said slowly. “Everything she does is never wrong.  You don’t even understand why she’s keeping up her appearances with Olaf and that’s not just because of the mission.  You don’t understand her at all -- you don’t understand her like I do.”

 _You don’t understand her like I do you can’t see her like I could you don’t see the real her completed with all her flaws and still love her anyway still love her still love her still love her rough sides and sharp edges and her darker sides still love her,_ she thought, painfully.

“Don’t confuse other people with me,” he snapped, and she wondered if he really meant to say ‘your brother’.  “I don’t think she’s perfect and I don’t claim to understand her or know if she has other motives for doing so, I’m just saying she’s not suddenly avoiding him in a way that would make him suspicious -- unlike _you._ ”

A beat of silence.  Snow continued falling from the sky.

“Sorry, I’m just, so afraid something’s going to go wrong,” he said, voice dropping to almost a whisper. He looked very pained for a moment before immediately slipping back into his very particular on brand anxiously-trying-to-get-along-with-everyone mode. “I know this isn’t easy for you.  I’m sorry.”

She didn’t want to talk about it.  She didn’t want to talk about Olaf or how she wanted to avoid him, or how she had agreed at the assignment briefing that yes she would take on the mission, and yes they could trust her, she would be a volunteer first.

He was looking at her, worry in his eyes and all the previous anger gone. She could practically feel him vibrating with anxiousness.

She was suddenly very, very tired.

She decided to talk about Beatrice instead. “Beatrice’s not just pretending nothing’s going on when with him for the mission’s sake. She’s -- they’re friends for ages and she’s going to miss how it was, once everything between them changes.  She’s trying to hold on to the final moments.” _I know her I see the real her I see everything she doesn’t say._

“I never really get their friendship,” he said quietly after some moments of silence, staring at the white scenery in front of them. “She’s -- I think she’s a great actress and there’s a lot she’s hiding underneath her dramatic performances that dazzle people. But, it’s like an earthquake, you know?  Sometimes when the energy doesn’t release for a very long time and just kept accumulating ...”

“Some places never get earthquakes, though,” she pointed out, wrapping her coat around her more firmly.

“True,” he conceded.

They were quiet for a while. Then Kit said, “She won’t break, and she won’t let anything affect the mission, even if she’s trying to hang on to these last moments of friendship between them.  She _won’t_.  I _know_ her.” Her fingers dug into the snow beside the pencil. _I know her I know her I know her --_

“Right, okay,” he said, quietly. “I trust you on this.”

“Trust me on what I said about Olaf, too,” she said. “I can’t handle this the same way Beatrice does because it’s easier to avoid him for me, but I do know him enough to know he’s not going to suspect anything specific until it’s too late that knowing what exactly to interfere wouldn’t change anything.”

“Okay,” he agreed, tearing his gaze away from the scenery and met her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust your decisions.”

He looked as tired as she felt, but she could also see the sincerity in his eyes. She didn’t have the energy to stay angry anymore, not in this cold snowy weather.  Plus, it wasn’t actually that easy for anyone to stay angry at him for too long.

“I know you’re just worried,” she said, softening a little.  She pulled out the half of the pencil that was stuck in snow, and pocketed both halves. “C’mon.  Let’s head back.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


End file.
